Before facebook and twitter, blogs and forums were the main tubes that people connected. And now they still play a roll in our communication way. But it seems getting replaced by social media in some ways. What will happen next? Will the social media get stronger and stronger to replace blogs and forums that no one can defeat? Or something new will come soon and become the new facebook and twitter? In this circumstances, will facebook and twitter can survive? And what will happen to the forums and blogs?

What will happen next? Will the social media get stronger and stronger to replace blogs and forums that no one can defeat?

Years ago I was talking with a friend about RSS/Atom feeds because I still use this technology and at that time I was looking for a better RSS/Atom reader. My friend told me that they no longer use RSS/Atom reader because most of the things that they are interested and are important will arrive at their “electronic mail inbox”. By “electronic mail inbox” I mean e-mail, Twitter feed, Facebook feed, Slack, WhatsApp chat/group, Telegram chat/group, Signal chat/group, …

Back to your question, I think the new generation has a different perspective about information and how to deal with it. The old generation only received a few paper letters at their door step each week so they had time to have a look on the content of each paper message. The new generation receive so many electronic messages every minute that they just don’t have the capacity to have a look at each message and they are happy with it. If something is important, it will show more than once at their screens.

And what will happen to the forums and blogs?

I think that forums and blogs will survive because they offer a different service than Twitter/Mastodonte/Facebook/… For example, if you want a drink/coffee/tea/beer you can go to a generic place (social media) but if you want a Starbucks coffee/Whittard of Chelsea tea/BrewDog beer you probably need to go to a special shop (forums and blogs).

The only constant in life is change. It’s evolution. And it’s our job to keep apprised of what those trends are. We will help and support our customers wherever they may be. Years ago it was Newsgroups. Later, AOL became a big deal. Forums. Blogs. Twitter Facebook Instagram. Snapchat. There’s always something new coming. And we will always be there, watching, listening, helping. Evolve or die. It’s how to survive.

First, wiki+forum+bugzilla were the top for developers years. Now, they like Stackoverflow (Q&A) and Slack. Or solutions like Tuleap + Gerrit. But the aim is still the same. It’s just better technologies, or more efficient ones.

The second part of this story if how ephemeral are social networks. It’s like a phone call, a SMS or an email. You exchange an information, and psssshhhiiiittt you can’t find it anymore. However, forums, q&a, trackers, wikis are places were information is stored and available in the future. This is why we will still use solutions like that. However, who can predict what will replace Stackoverflow?

The only thing constant is change. Way back we used to read wiki, forums, orkut etc. Now we have social media which is not only a place for making friends but to share information. So definitely something new will come and replace these social media icons.